@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @@@@@@@ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society 04/03/26 -- Vol. 44, No. 40, Whole Number 2426
Table of Contents
Mini Reviews, Part 11 (film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper):
IT HAPPENED IN BROOKLYN (1947): Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, William Roy, and Kathryn Grayson all play characters who have dreams of being successful in music (as singer, composer, pianist, and opera singer). Sinatra, Lawford, and Roy all achieve their goals. We see Grayson sing an aria from "Lakme" in a dream sequence, and then she goes off the England to marry Lawford and eventually to be a duchess.
Pardon me while I go throw up.
(Oh, and I was sure that it would turn out that Leo was 17 rather than 16-1/2, but that his mother had lied about his birthday because she hadn't been married when she got pregnant. But I forgot about the Hays Code--no chance of that.)
Released theatrically 07 April 1947.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039501/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/it_happened_in_brooklyn
The Marx Brothers Films: I just watched TCM's New Year's Eve Marx Brothers marathon, and my personal opinion is that while there are a few funny bits, I find the films (and the Marx Brothers themselves) more obnoxious than funny (except for Zeppo, who is neither obnoxious nor funny). I know things were different then, but much of Groucho's and Harpo's "humor" seems to involved assaulting women, and Chico's is based on negative ethnic stereotypes. I suppose this makes me "woke" or a "radical leftist liberal" or something, but it is what it is.
I'm not going to list the reference URLs et al for all the movies, but I will list the films shown, in chronological order:
THE TV SET (2006): In the syntax of the "elevator pitch" THE TV SET is "THE BIG PICTURE meets NETWORK", but not as good as either. At times painful to watch, it can easily be skipped in favor of the other two. (And the commentaries consist of people spending a lot of time joking with each other and not providing very more information, either.)
Released theatrically 28 April 2006.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473709/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tv_set
[-ecl]
Ray Harryhausen Films, Part 08 (film comments by Evelyn C. Leeper): C. Leeper)
And for this last part, three films, partly because one of them is a questionable inclusion:
THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956): THE ANIMAL WORLD is a film remembered for one ten-minute sequence. A history of all life on earth, the film begins with prehistoric life. But since the filmmakers could not film actual prehistoric life, they called on Ray Harryhausen to re-create various dinosaurs. Most of them are from the Late Jurassic, but the final battle is between two dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous.
Of course, in 1956, we didn't know as much about dinosaurs, and their era, as we do now. The narration gives three possible reasons for the dinosaurs disappearing: a cooling off of the climate, the dinosaur's lack of "mother love" for their children, and volcanic activity. The sequence opts for the last, with the final battle between two Tyrannosauri reges (Tyrannosaur rexes to the non-Classical among you) and a triceratops ending when they fall off a cliff weakened by the movement of the earth from volcanic activity and are buried in hot lava.
The argument about "mother love" makes no sense. The dinosaurs were around for millions of years, with various species dying off and being replaced over that time, and then suddenly not being replaced; why would they suddenly all die off from lack of mother love? Of course, now we are reasonably sure that it was a variation of the cooling off of the climate, because of a giant meteor impact.
They also show what they say might have happened if humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, except that they have a brontosaurus eat a human. Brontosauri (again, brontosauruses for the non-Classical) were vegetarian.
And they describe the stegosaurus as having a gentle nature. How do they know?
As for Harryhausen's work, this was his first film in color and he does not seem to have gotten the surface texture and color quite right. All the dinosaurs look shiny, and not scaly. Compare this to Willis O'Brien's models in the black-and-white KING KONG (1933), which have exteriors that look quite realistic, or the prehistoric creatures in the earlier, black-and-white Harryhausen films.
There are also too many camera shots aimed directly into dinosaurs' mouths, which look particularly unrealistic, being far less detailed that they would be in real life.
The actual stop motion is decent, though not up to that which Harryhausen would produce in his later films for Charles Schneer.
Released theatrically 30 May 1956; the prehistoric segment is available on YouTube.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048950/reference
What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_animal_world
THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X (and other titles) (1958): This is a confusing film, at least title-wise.
In THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS, the Knight tells Alice about a song:
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes'."
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is called. The name really is 'The Aged Aged Man'."
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the song is called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The song is called 'Ways And Means': but that's only what it's called, you know!"
"Well, what is the song, then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really is 'A-sitting On A Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
Why am I telling you this? Well, I'm going to talk about a film that it is rumored that Ray Harryhausen worked on.
The British title of this film is "The Strange World of Planet X".
The title the film was advertised under in the United States was "Cosmic Monsters".
The title on the film itself was "The Cosmic Monster".
The title it was reviewed under in "Film Daily" was "The Crawling Terror".
And the real question is whether Ray Harryhausen worked on this film. He is not credited, and Bill Warren (usually comprehensive) say nothing about it, not even that there is a rumor. Yet I have heard this rumor in multiple places.
Almost all the "giant bug" effects are from macro-photography, and the few that appear to be stop-motion may actually be mechanical. (They only last a few seconds at a time.)
My conclusion: The rumor that Harryhausen worked on this is false.
This does seem to have the distinction of being the only British "giant insect" film of the 1950s, and also a strange combination of "giant insect" movie and "alien from outer space" movie. It's also very sexist (no surprise for 1958).
Released theatrically 31 December 1958.
Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051020/reference
What others are saying:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/strange_world_of_planet_x
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cosmic_monsters
[-ecl]
RABBIT TEST AND OTHER STORIES by Samantha Mills (copyright 2026, Tachyon Publications, publication date April 21, 2026, ISBN: 978-1-61696-451-1 (print); 978-1-61696-453-5 (digital)), (book review by Joe Karpierz):
Like many genre readers, my first encounter with a Samantha Mills work was her award-winning short story "Rabbit Test", published in 2022. It wasn't that story, however, that made me pick up her 2024 novel THE WINGS UPON HER BACK. It was the premise and description alone that made me want to read that book, and it was an excellent one. But Mills generally flies under my radar, since most of what she's written is short fiction, and I tend to float in the direction of novels. However, when the opportunity to read her debut collection RABBIT TEST AND OTHER STORIES presented itself, I decided it was time to jump right in.
Those readers who are familiar with Mills' work will nod their head sagely when I say that she does not limit herself to one type of story, one genre, one theme, one anything. In many cases in this collection, there is more than one element that makes up the tale. There may be a mixture of sf and fantasy, and a dollop of horror thrown in (I'll get to that shortly). There are elements of family, loss, emotional strife, and all sorts of things in these stories all at once. As a result, the reader is constantly kept on their toes, as it isn't necessarily clear what's going to happen next, and if it is, it's not clear how Mills is going to take us there.
There is a slew of terrific stories here. "Kiki Hernandez Beats the Devil" combines fantasy (and a wee bit of horror) with rock and roll to tell the tail of a rock guitar queen who can slay devils with her guitar playing. Mills references classic rock songs from my youth as weapons for Hernandez to use when she is slaying a particular devil to save a father and his child (who steals the show, in my opinion). I'm a sucker for straightforward stories that are simple and to the point, although I'm sure that Mills would say "but wait, I was really trying to say ..." and maybe she was. But it's the guitars, devils, and rock and roll that stole my heart here.
Whether you think of time travel as fantasy or science fiction--my vote is for the popular marketing term of "science fantasy", although I think that having to put that kind of label on something takes the fun and wonder of it (or not; your mileage may vary)--"Strange Waters" is an enthralling story of a time-traveling fisher woman (man? sometimes the correct term escapes me) who travels through the time streams on her fishing boat looking to get back to her own time to see her family. It's a very touching and emotional story.
"Anchorage" is a science fictional story about a space ship which encounters a device called an anchorage. Most members of the crew of the ship are reluctant to enter the anchorage and discover who or what is there, but those that do discover that the entity that is there is looking only for stories, and in return it provides something that was unexpected. "Adrianna In Pomegranate" is the story of a father who uses magic to try to bring his deceased daughter back to life. This story is as old as the hills, but Mills manages to make it much more emotional and devastating than any other version of it that I have read in a long time.
The centerpiece of the collection is, of course, "Rabbit Test", the devastating tale of women seeking abortions throughout history and how society has almost always made it difficult to safely have the procedure. This story, which won more awards than I can count--and deservedly so --was timely when it was published, and the closing line is bone-chilling. It is Mills at the top of her game.
Other favorites are "A Shadow Is a Memory of a Ghost", about the conflict between two sisters with regard to the inherited family duty to care for souls unwilling to cross over to the next side. The award for the Best Short Story Title in the collection is "10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days", about a couple dealing with a Hellgate off the coast of California. There is a Lovecraftian tone to it, which shows that Mills can indeed dig into horror without it being too...horrific.
As with most collections, not all the stories here are for everyone, and that's okay. Mills exhibits a vast and dynamic range of storytelling that is impressive, which means there is something here for everyone. Which means everyone should get a copy and read it. I recommend it. [-jak] [Why not just go with "fisher"? -ecl] ===================================================================
ALIEN EARTHS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF PLANET HUNTING IN THE COSMOS by Lisa Kaltenegger (book review by Gregory Frederick):
ALIEN EARTHS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF PLANET HUNTING IN THE COSMOS is a popular science book about the search for life beyond Earth. Author Lisa Kaltenegger, an astrophysicist and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, guides readers through how scientists detect exoplanets and evaluate whether they might be habitable. This book makes complex science accessible because Kaltenegger breaks down topics like exoplanets, atmospheres, and the "Goldilocks zone" into understandable terms. Even when scientific terminology appears, it's presented in a "digestible format" for general readers. You don't need a science background and concepts build gradually from simple to complex. The book combines astronomy, biology, chemistry, and geology showing how all are needed to define "life" and detect it remotely. The author even talks about science fiction books, TV shows and films that have used star systems in their stories which we are currently studying today as places where exoplanets exist. This interdisciplinary approach is one of the book's most interesting aspects. [-gf]
DUNE MESSIAH (letter of comment by Steve Coltrin):
In response to Paul S. R. Chisholm's comments on DUNE MESSIAH in the 03/27/26 issue of the MT VOID, Steve Coltrin writes:
[Paul S. R. Chisholm writes,] "(Really, could none of these meetings have been an email?)"
Well, no, they couldn't. Butlerian Jihad and all that. [-sc]
This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper):
"Review of TOLSTOY: HIS LIFE AND WORK by Derrick Leon" (The Observer, 26 March 1944): After a long review, Orwell writes, "... this is an outstanding book, and though one cannot not advise people to buy books costing twenty-five shillings, at least everyone who can borrow a copy should read it." At the time the average wage for general workers was about four-and-a-half pounds (90 shillings) a week, and for skilled workers about six pounds (120 shillings) a week. so for the average worker it would take 28% of his weekly wage, and for a skilled worker, 20%. Obviously wages in the United States cover a broad range, but if we take $70,000 a year as an average, this would be the equivalent of a book costing over $300. Clearly, this work was not going to sell a lot of copies to your average worked in Britain.
Another conversion table, however, claims the purchasing power of twenty-five shillings in 1944 is equivalent to about 70 pounds, or $95. This doesn't really make it more affordable in real terms.
Either way, it makes today's hardcover prices ($30, on the average) seem like bargains, and trade paperbacks ($20, on the average) practically giveaways. The reason those prices seem high is that for a long time the incredibly cheap mass market paperbacks spoiled the reader of popular books. (Whether a biography of Tolstoy would have come out in mass market format is another question.)
Now the mass market format is being phased out, and the electronic and audio formats have entered the market. The electronic format is the cheapest, but you are not actually buying a book, but the right to read a book. You can't resell it, and if the supporting hardware or platform becomes obsolete, or if the vendor decides you shouldn't have it, you don't have the book anymore.
And coincidentally, there was a recent column on Book Riot ( https://bookriot.com/were-in-a-book-affordability-crisis/) talking about the cost of books now that mass market is going away.
The earliest mass market the author of the column (R. Nassor) has is a 1966 book from Bantam Books for $0.50 ($5.08, adjusted for inflation). (They clearly started collecting late; I have mass market paperbacks going back to the early 1950s at least, depending on how one counts such early appearances as Donald Wollheim's 1943 POCKETBOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION. Penguin Books started publishing what were effectively the first mass market paperback books in 1935; the term was first used by Pocket Books in 1939.) The latest they have is a 2025 book from Avon for $9.99.
By comparison a 2025 trade paperback costs on between $15.99 and $21.99.
Ebooks are basically rented to you, not owned, and Kindle Unlimited at $11.99 a month has the same flaws. As Nassor notes, if they want to read a book without owning it, they will go to the public library. So they do not think that low ebook prices are comparable. (Not noted is that Kindle Unlimited is not really unlimited: Of the estimated 12 million Kindle books on Amazon, less than half--5 million--are available in Kindle Unlimited. It is unlimited in the sense that you can borrow as many of these as you want, though no more than twenty at a time.)
In a later essay, "Are Books Too Dear?" (Manchester Evening News, 1 June 1944), Orwell goes into the cost of books in more detail. He starts with two premises: The more the public reads, the better, and it is undesirable that writers should starve to death. He then figures out what the writer's annual income is when a book sells for seven [shillings] and six pence (apparently the standard price before the war; during the war it was half a guinea). The author gets 50 pounds for every thousand sold, but a writer's first book rarely sells more than six or seven hundred. The writer is somewhat helped by the fact that at the time lending library charges two pence to borrow a book and some of the local taxes also supported the cost of books in the public libraries. In fact, Orwell claims it is the libraries and not the book-buying public that manages to support the writer.
In 1935, Penguin Books came out with reprints at sixpence which were also better bound and more attractive than the other publishers' books. But this was only financially sound for the writers if it was for reprints, not for original publication, and Orwell concludes that the price for books is not unreasonable, especially given the existence of libraries. [-ecl]
Evelyn C. Leeper
evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com
Quote of the Week:
Just so we're clear: Jeffrey Dahmer served longer in the
military, was accused of raping fewer people, was
responsible for fewer deaths, and paid more taxes than
Donald Trump.
--unknown
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